The Best Thing In Your Life
by Phoebsfan
Summary: You view your black and white world; your ghosts come out to play in this quiet room...You gave someone else faded black and white photographs with no album to keep them in...A small post ep for DDA...mentions of HG as well.


The Best Thing in Your Life  
  
Disclaimer: I own no one. Not Alec, not Max, not Asha nor Annie, not even Joshua.  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Summery: Just a little trip inside of Alec's head at the close of DDA  
  
AN: I don't know but I always like to include one. Hehehe… no seriously tell me if you get completely lost by the end of this. My pronoun use is rather… confusing at times. But I wanted it that way.  
  
  
  
  
  
Missed opportunities.  
  
Broken promises.  
  
Faded moments in a Technicolor world that turn black and white with age and inactivity. With denial and forced distance.  
  
Lies.  
  
Distorted truths.  
  
Cleverly disguised covers.  
  
It doesn't matter what you call them. They are what they are, and you can paint any picture you'd like around them to cover them up, paint them as something new, but underneath of it, they're all the same.  
  
Exposure, it was only a matter of time. You knew that you couldn't run forever, and that one day your past would catch up with you.  
  
You just didn't think it would be so soon.  
  
You just liked to believe that you had all the time in the world. That things would wait until you were sufficiently healed. Until you could put your ghosts away and clear those skeletons from your closet.  
  
It's like that cartoon coyote. The one who is always running off cliffs, not looking where he's going, only falling when he looks down.  
  
You are that coyote. Never looking. Never caring until all of a sudden you shouldn't.  
  
Till all of a sudden you're crashing into the ground and reality is hitting you upside the head, biting you on the ass, smashing the brightly colored world into your face.  
  
And then it's over. Because unlike that coyote you can't get back up again.  
  
You wish the world were animated. Then it wouldn't matter what you were. If talking rabbits could walk around eating their carrots and asking inane questions, then it wouldn't matter that you were created in a lab.  
  
People wouldn't care who you were. They'd simply smile at you and treat you like one of their own. Maybe you'd even share a carrot or two with that lame ass rabbit.  
  
You let Manticore run your life for so long. Too long you realize. But now it's too late to fix it. Cause you are busy falling off that cliff.  
  
You know that you could have let people in. That they would have thrown you a rope, waited beneath you with a bucket of water, or even drawn more land under your feet. You know that there were people who tried.  
  
And you hate that because you never left Manticore they never had the opportunity to.  
  
You hate that they are quickly becoming those faded memories, those missed opportunities, those inescapable ghosts.  
  
You blame your ghosts for holding back. You blame your creators. But you know that it was you and only you.  
  
You know you just didn't want to get hurt.  
  
And you know that now you've only created more ghosts.  
  
You did something else too. You gave someone else ghosts. You gave someone else faded black and white photographs with no album to keep them in. You pulled someone else off that cliff with you.  
  
Because after all you talk about, after all you praise about… You are only one thing.  
  
Alone.  
  
No you are two things.  
  
Alone and scared.  
  
But you won't tell anyone that. You are not supposed to be scared and they don't realize that you don't like being alone.  
  
You told her those things because you were alone. Because maybe a part of you was jealous that she could have the things that you had cut yourself off from. You know that you also told her because you knew that this was coming.  
  
You thought you were right. You thought that she was wrong.  
  
You thought you knew better. But you are arrogant.  
  
You know that too.  
  
She told you so.  
  
The other person you hurt.  
  
The one faded photograph you can't seem to let go of. The one that you can't drop into the burning pile because her face keeps asking you why.  
  
The one that you spent last night drinking over. The one that you hurt intentionally and only ended up hurting yourself as a result.  
  
You know you will probably never see her again.  
  
You know that despite what people tell you, being with her is dangerous.  
  
You know that you like danger. Crave it. And have been with others in the past in dumb places, at dumb times, just because it was dangerous.  
  
But this danger is different from the other danger.  
  
And you don't want to let it anywhere close to her.  
  
She thinks you're a fool for pushing her away. You agree. In another world you would not have pushed her so far. In another world, in that animated world, she would be the one throwing you the rope. She would be painting bridges beneath your feet.  
  
You tell yourself it is for her own good.  
  
That it is better that she does not get close. That she does not play with the fire that will only burn her in the end.  
  
This danger that you want and don't want. That you crave and despise, it will be better for you had the idea never crossed your mind.  
  
Death is not death.  
  
These lies you tell yourself to make yourself feel safe. Safe and justified. Justified and rational. Rational and true.  
  
Because you know that you'd like to get burnt, if it was with her.  
  
You paint around that too. You don't really want to hurt her, you tell yourself. You don't really want to make her cry.  
  
But you can't burn her photograph either.  
  
You've tried.  
  
They taught you how to forget things, they taught you how to burn those pictures without taking them out of your head.  
  
You've used it in the past. You've buried other ghosts.  
  
But some ghosts don't want to stay buried. And she is another of those ghosts.  
  
You don't know why. You never came close to danger with her. You made sure to push her away before you could touch her, before you could taste her, before you could even hold a civilized conversation with her without first being drunk beyond reason, without first letting that guard you keep so well down, without drugs to dull your senses.  
  
Yet still she haunts you more then the ghost of your previous lover. She haunts you with questions of why? With questions and what if's. She stands in the distance beckoning and somehow explaining exactly what you missed.  
  
You know you missed a lot. You are just now beginning to realize how much.  
  
You still want to see her, be her friend if nothing else. But you know that that too is danger. That that is the danger where death is death. Where it is final and cannot be erased with words.  
  
You view your black and white world; your ghosts come out to play in this quiet room.  
  
You warned him away too. Told him that it wasn't safe. That she had to go.  
  
And now she is dead and he is her killer. And you are his killer.  
  
And you've all killed because you were afraid of that danger.  
  
You've all killed because you told them that that danger was real and going to kill them.  
  
And now your broken arms aren't big enough for both of them. Now your bruised world is leaking into theirs.  
  
They were fine until you infected them and you know it. But still you cling to your lies.  
  
Still you tell yourself that sometimes bad things happen to good people. And that she never would have been caught in the cross fire had he turned her away.  
  
But you also know that he never would have been out had you let him keep her. You know that they wouldn't be looking for him had you let him keep his drawer of bridges.  
  
You are her killer too.  
  
You think that by now it shouldn't matter. That you've got so much blood on your hands the new stains should blend with the old.  
  
But this is not so.  
  
Her blood is still bright and fresh. And his blood is mixing with it.  
  
You think that maybe they were right.  
  
No, you know they are right.  
  
But you pick up your paintbrush again and you paint the truth a different shade.  
  
You don't like the blue hue that it has chosen, you'd rather it were harsh and glaring instead of muted. You choose a red that matches the blood on your hands. It will remind you that you will kill anyone who comes your way.  
  
It will remind you that you are the coyote and that the roadrunner will always win. That the air beneath your feet will give way and that you will come crashing down to the ground.  
  
You concoct a clever disguise for it.  
  
You build it a nice new house.  
  
You don't let it color those faded pictures. You don't let it be what it is.  
  
You don't like it that way.  
  
Because you know that if it was… You know that if you did leave it that way…  
  
You'd know that you are missing out on the best thing in your life.  
  
You'd know that nothing else really matters.  
  
And you aren't ready to know that.  
  
You hand Joshua a paintbrush and then you hand one to Max.  
  
If you hurry there won't be so much to paint over. 


End file.
